Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden led off the Swedish 4x200m freestyle relay with the fourth fastest 200m freestyle ever recorded.
Sjostrom put the Swedes into first after her performance, touching the wall in 1:54.31. Her closest competitor was 200m freestyle bronze medallist Missy Franklin of the United States in 1:55.95.
Her time beats Allison Schmitt’s 1:54.40 as the fourth fastest 200m free of all time. It’s also the second fastest textile 200m freestyle ever behind only Schmitt’s 1:53.61 winning time from the 2012 London Olympic Games.
It also moves Sjostrom to the third best performer ever in the event behind only Frederica Pellegrini and Schmitt. Pellegrini holds the fastest and third fastest 200m freestyles at 1:52.98 and 1:53.67.
With her 1:54.31, Sjostrom would have won the individual 200m freestyle final at these world championships by almost a full second. The gold medal went to Katie Ledecky of the United States in 1:55.16. Ledecky was in the same 4x200m freestyle relay race as Sjostrom, anchoring the American team to a gold medal.
The Swedish team led for the first 600-meters, but they were passed almost immediately as Ledecky entered the pool.
Putting their best swimmers on the front half of their relay, Ida Marko-Varga of Sweden was passed by both Frederica Pellegrini of Italy and Duo Shen of China, leaving the Swedes off the podium and settling for fourth.
At the touch the Swedish team was a 7:49.10 following Marko-Varga’s two-minute split. Marko-Varga has been a 1:58.2 in the 200m freestyle, although she hasn’t been close to that time since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
There’s no denying that the Swedish team is a medal threat, and potentially a threat for gold. They need one more 1:57 200m freestyler to put on their team heading into Rio. If they can invest in the event and manage that, there’s no denying that gold is an option for the Swedish team come 2016.
Who can people easily discount Ledecky’s non-Olympic 1500 meter swims, which were done in WR times. I’m confident that if she didn’t swim those events, she would be a load faster.
Guy, please, remind me who was sniffing Sarah’s bubbles during the 1st leg 4×200? Names please!
It was 9th race for Sarah at this Championships so far, including heats in both 4×200 and 4×100 free. It was her 4th race in day 5 (2 x (4×200) and 2×100 free). More races are yet to come in folowing 3 days.
Besides, neither Franklin nor Ledecky swam 4×200 in the morming as well as 4×100 free.
Stop all this shitty speculations! Respect athletes!
If Sjostrom had swum the 200, Ledecky might have held back more than she did in the 1500 and been able to put up better times in the 200, not that I think she could have matchec the time Sjostrom swam in the relay.
Ledecky also might have been able to swim faster 200s if she didn’t have to worry about the tight 1500 final/200 semi double, The double required a major focus on endurance training, so she probably was not able to work on her speed as much as she had last year.
It makes no sense to say Sarah would have won the 200 free. She was not there and we will never know how she would have handled it (assuming she got into the final and did not do an Efimova). Nor we will know how the other swimmers would have reacted to her race, how the different lane disposition would have affected their swimming, and so on. It is however true that she would have added to the thrill of the race.
clearly it’s just people speculating and obviously no one knows for sure, but I think there is a strong argument to be made that she could have won that race had she entered it.
Let me just out this out there, If Sarah breaks the 100free WR and wins of her remaining 3 events, I would consider her the female swimmer of the year over Ledecky– especially if she ends the year with top ranked swims in 5 events.
I was wondering about the Swimmer of the Year award too. Lots of hypotheticals, obviously, but let’s assume Sarah and Katie win the rest of their events. I wonder if the award comes down to the medal from the 200, and thus not racing might cost Sarah the award. (Not that it was necessarily a bad decision; in fact, it was rather brave to recognize her potential limits and not overextend herself.)
Sarah winning 50 free is a longshot so I wouldn’t worry about it, but 50/100 free, 50/100 fly would obviously be >> 200, 400, 800, 1500. Only marquee event of the latter is the 200, the former has at least two. That’s nothing against Ledecky though, you can’t do more than winning what you swim, she’s an incredible athlete and it wouldn’t surprise me if she one day medals in the 100 too. I’m thinking Sarah takes two golds(fly events), one silver(100 free) and bronze or no medal in the 50 free here. Which will be an incredible meet for her, but Ledecky will be the queen of the championships for going 5/5.
The thing about Sarah being rested and… Read more »
I tend to agree (if what you describe happens). At the end of the day, I value excellence in the shorter races much more than in distance. No super logical reason why (though I suspect the talent in the shorter races is much higher than in distance races just because I mean, what good swimmer wants to be a distance swimmer if they can win in the short races? 🙂 but it’s what I think.
Fundamentally, whether a fan wants to see Sjostrom swim a 200free in a major competition boils down to 1 question- do they rather see her win the 200free or the 100free. I’m sure Sarah’s answer is the 100free. That’s why she chose not to swim the 200. Coming into this meet, I’m sure Sarah knew she had a good shot of winning the 200free, but made the conscious decision to not swim it because to her a 100free gold > 200free gold + 100free minor medal/no medal.
The Campbells mean business and based on the legacy Sarah wants to set for herself, unless she is confident of throwing down a 51 100free, she’d rather not risk it.
I mentioned this in the main finals thread — while Ledecky swam a phenomenal race and showed us all that there are no limits to her fierceness (even in races in which she is an “underdog”), I’m confident Sjostrom would have won the 200 had she swum it. Of course we’ll never know, and I’m really happy that Katie won since it keeps her astonishing streak of international golds alive, but consider:
The final, although slower than everyone was hoping for, wasn’t too surprising given how each of the contenders is performing at this meet.
The top 3 times were faster than what anyone else swam throughout the qualifying rounds.
Heemskerk seems to be a little off here —… Read more »
Oops, forgot to mention that Pellegrini’s time, while off her season- and textile-best, was only marginally so.
The last WC, she did enter 200 and she improved her times by every race, going faster in the semis, and even faster in the finals. But then Sarah was not the swimmer she is today so she came in fourth. But if she would have raced 200 in this WC I really think that she would have won it. Today she had two 100 races and one 200 in her before going 1.54,31. That’s something